


Shifting Colours

by alpacatracks



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: And the Hresvelg siblings, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Post-Crimson Flower, With some Babygard, edeleth is love edeleth is life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29317641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacatracks/pseuds/alpacatracks
Summary: As the world changes around her, so does Edelgard's hair colour.(aka the life and times of Edelgard von Hresvelg's hair)
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 83





	Shifting Colours

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Ever see a piece of fanart that's so beautiful that you're inspired to write fic? Well, this gorgeous art by twitter user @sethkiell made me wonder what would happen if, after the war, Edelgard's hair went back to brown again: https://twitter.com/sethkiell/status/1349125455836680203. Full credit to them for the idea! And after a few weeks of putting off writing this, here we are.
> 
> A word of caution: I've rated this fic T because of angst and because of references to the fate of the Hresvelg siblings and El's experiences beneath the palace.

Each of the Hresvelg siblings has the same shade of light brown hair. It’s one of the few traits that all eleven of them share, aside from the obvious things, like the fact that they’re the children of the Emperor. They have different eye colours, nose shapes, body types, no doubt inherited from their different mothers: Wilhelm, the eldest, is long and lanky, while Arminius, the second son, is built like a warrior. But they all have the same soft brown hue in common. 

Edelgard likes her hair. It’s long and soft, like it's been woven from silk, and she likes to brush it every morning with the comb that her sisters gave her for her birthday. After an afternoon at the training grounds, though, it’s fallen out of place, and she can’t help but wince as she feels the teeth of the comb wriggle through a particularly stubborn tangle.

“Sit still, El,” says Aggie irritably. “If you keep moving it’ll hurt more.”

Agata is ten, two years older than Edelgard. Her hair is the same shade, but it’s wild and thick instead of smooth and straight. 

“You need to be more gentle, Aggie,” says Rosalind from across the room, watching as the bushy-haired girl drags the comb through another of Edelgard’s tangles. Her own hair is scooped back into a bun and she’s thumbing through one of the salacious romance novels from the palace library (the ones that are confined to the dusty shelves at the back, the ones they’re not supposed to know about). “There’s no need to pull so hard.”

“I’m fine,” says Edelgard, blinking back the tears. Despite her discomfort - why _does_ Aggie have to pull so hard? - she likes letting her sisters comb her hair. They’re the only people in the world who are allowed to touch it, except for Mother. And Hubert, of course. She watches as Aggie reaches across the dresser for a violet ribbon, which she uses to tie Edelgard’s hair into bunches.

“The ribbon matches your eyes,” she says, beaming proudly at the sight of her younger sister in the mirror. “Hey, Rosalind! Doesn’t she look like a princess?”

“She _is_ a princess,” says Rosalind, with an amused roll of her eyes. “And so are you.”

“Yeah, but El’s special,” teases Aggie. “She’s the only one who gets to go to the opera with Uncle Volkhard tonight.” Her impish smile is replaced by a pout. “And to see Manuela as well! I wish _I_ could get to see her one day.” She lets out a wistful sigh.

Edelgard doesn’t understand why the three of them - she, Mother and Uncle Volkhard - are going to the opera tonight. She also doesn’t understand why Mother told the maid to pack her a bag, when she thought Edelgard wasn’t listening: why does she need a set of clean clothes when the opera house is only a short carriage ride from the palace? Bewildered, she wonders if her siblings, or maybe Hubert, know something she doesn’t. 

_Still, it doesn’t matter,_ she tells herself. She’ll be back at the palace tomorrow, when she’ll be free to practice wielding her axe at the training grounds, or paint the flowers in the gardens, or convince Hubert to show off the latest spell he’s learned. She shuts her eyes, twirling a finger around a soft strand of hair, and for a moment she believes everything will be alright.

\------  
Edelgard hears the scuttle of tiny footsteps across the stone floor, and she buries her fingertips into her palm. It’s something Carlotta, her eldest sister, taught her to do when she felt angry or afraid. She suppresses the urge to scream, waiting until the tip-tap of tiny rodent feet fades away, and the only sound comes from the repetitive _drip drip_ of water falling from the ceiling.

She runs her fingers through an unwashed clump of hair, pretending that she’s back in her room upstairs and that Aggie is combing it again. She hasn’t seen Aggie for days. It might even be weeks: she doesn’t know. Edelgard used to stare through the crack in the wall, watching as the afternoon sunlight faded into the gloom of evening, then the dense black of night. Another day gone. But she stopped counting the days long ago. 

In the dim light, she can’t see very much. Her eyes strain as she stares down at her hands. Edelgard hasn’t seen her reflection for ages, and she almost doesn’t want to; she pictures the marks on her wrists from the restraints, the incisions on her skin from what they call the “reconstruction”. As if she’s broken, in need of being fixed.

The footsteps return, but it’s not a rat this time. These ones belong to a human. She swallows the lump in her throat, hoping that it’s not her turn, willing the owner of the footsteps to keep walking. 

She hears the clank of metal as the key turns in the lock. There’s no point in fighting now. The guards bring her food three times a day, saying that it’s important that she eats, but she refuses to touch it; as a result, she feels weak and tired. Suddenly hands - _strangers’_ hands - are on her wrists, and restraints fall away, but she can barely raise her arms. She lets them lead her away from the cell and down the corridor, no longer strong enough to fight them.

But they don’t take her down the usual route. They’re climbing up stairs: she can tell, because her legs are too stubborn and heavy to climb it, so they have to drag her up instead. She wants to ask where they’re going, but when she moves her lips, there’s only silence. 

They take her to a room she hasn’t been in before: it’s so well lit compared to her dingy cell that it takes her eyes a few seconds to get used to the surroundings. It’s sparsely furnished: there’s a bed in the corner, next to which stands a table, and there’s a mirror on the opposite wall. The door clicks shut behind her, and she’s alone again, but she can hear muffled voices from the corridor outside. She’s heard them talking in cautious whispers before, when they think she can’t hear them: about how, out of eleven siblings, she’s the only one who the surgery might have worked on.

_Why just me?_ she thinks. _Why not the rest of them?_

She crosses the room slowly and perches on the edge of the bed. When she looks down at her hands, a strand of hair falls from behind her ear. Edelgard wonders if it’s the light at first, or if it’s her mind deceiving her: her hair is _white_. Pure, dazzling white, like the undisturbed snow that fell during the long winters she spent in the Kingdom. 

But as she studies her reflection in the mirror opposite, she knows it’s not an illusion, no matter how much she wants it to be. Her brown hair has disappeared. It’s the last thing that connects her to her brothers and sisters, and it’s gone.

\------

In just over an hour they’ll attack the Kingdom capital. This is the place that her journey - her crimson-stained path - has been leading to. She’s dreamed about it, of course, but even she couldn’t predict exactly how it would unfold. For one thing, she didn’t imagine she’d have the Professor by her side, or her classmates. She’d spent so many nights at the academy wide awake, when she couldn’t bear the thought of going back to sleep in case the nightmares returned, picturing the day when they’d turn their backs on her. Except it never came.

Edelgard studies her reflection in the mirror. Her hair is long and loose. She knows she should tie it back, that having strands of hair flying in her face while she’s cutting aside enemies with Aymr isn’t practical, but she can’t seem to pin the hair into place, as if it’s staging its own private rebellion.

She looks back in the mirror, and beyond her reflection she notices the canvas at the entrance of her tent twitch. She expects it to be Hubert, or maybe a messenger coming to tell her that Rhea has finally surrendered, even though she knows that’s unlikely. But it’s the Professor, already dressed for battle, and she feels a familiar rush of warmth.

“Thought I’d stop by,” says Byleth. “Although I hoped you’d be ready by now, Your Majesty.” 

Edelgard suppresses a smile. Hearing the Professor call her that always sounds strange: even though she’s technically one of Edelgard’s subjects, she’s always seen her as an equal. Byleth is right: she isn’t ready. She’s dressed in her gold Emperor’s armour, of course - she’s rarely out of it these days of endless battles - but she can feel the weight of her untied hair.

Unwelcome thoughts - thoughts that they might not survive the next battle - have crossed her mind, although she’s always pushed them away. She can’t bear the thought of losing any member of the Strike Force. Especially not Byleth.

“Well, at least _you_ seem ready,” Edelgard says.

Byleth smiles. “Well, it’s not like we didn’t know this was coming. Although-” She pauses, running her fingers through her own thick, pale green hair. “I wish they’d done the right thing and evacuated the citizens.”

“Well, that’s the church for you,” says Edelgard, feeling a stab of anger. “They like to sit back and let the ordinary people shed blood on their behalf.” When she declared war on the church, she knew there’d be casualties. She can picture the bodies strewn across the Tailtean Plains as they cut their way through the Kingdom army, with the demonic beats raining light upon them from above. Amongst them is the body of her stepbrother, face down on the sodden field. And above her is the rain, lashing down in torrents, washing away the last of the bloodstains.

She drives those thoughts from her mind and attempts to pin another strand of hair into place, but the hair grip won’t hold the weight, and she lets out a frustrated sigh as it tumbles loose again.

“Here. Let me do that.”

Edelgard nearly backs away as Byleth approaches her: she hasn’t let anyone touch her hair since childhood, not even Hubert. But it’s _Byleth_ , and she tells herself to relax. There’s something comforting about the sensation of the Professor’s fingertips brushing against her skin, and she shuts her eyes, suppressing a wince as Byleth accidentally presses the sharp end of the hair grip into her scalp.

“I can’t promise that I’ll get this exactly right,” says Byleth, her face contorted into a frown, as if she’s trying to picture what El’s hair _should_ look like. “Who normally does this for you anyway?”

Edelgard turns away - anything to hide the fact that she’s blushing. “I do it myself,” she mumbles. It’s the one thing that strictly _no one_ in the Emperor’s vast entourage of servants is allowed to do: touch her hair. So she sets aside time every morning to sculpt it into the Emperor’s trademark hairstyle, even if it means waking up before first light. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it this morning, the promise of the evening’s battle weighing heavy on her mind.

“Makes sense,” says Byleth, her fingers working deftly as she begins twisting Edelgard’s hair into its usual shape. “I remember something you told me back at the Academy once.”

“Oh?” Edelgard’s mind races back through all the conversations they had back at the academy; all those hours spent in the Black Eagle classroom, or in the dining hall, or down by the fish pond. “And what would that be?”

“Something about how you don’t care much for makeup, but that you take really good care of your hair,” says Byleth. She pins another strand into place, caressing the top of Edelgard’s right ear tenderly. “Anyway, Your Majesty, you need to hold still. It’ll hurt more if you don’t.”

Edelgard shuts her eyes, all too glad to take orders from the Professor, and in a moment she’s back in her childhood bedroom, or the gardens of the Academy, taking sips of bergamot tea: a place where she’s warm, and safe, and loved.

\------

It’s been two years. She first noticed the change a few months after the war ended. There were just a few strands at first: she’d dismissed it, told herself that she was seeing things. That it was just wishful thinking. But they kept emerging, growing, like the vines crawling up the palace walls. 

After years of not letting people touch her hair, she finally caves one day and asks the Imperial Master of Hair - a position she didn’t even know existed - cut most of it off. Part of her is in mourning as she watches the hair collecting at her feet, but it’s replaced by a sense of release when she sees her reflection. The last strands of white hair litter the floor of her bedroom, like a skin that she’s just shed, or the remains of a cocoon from which a butterfly has emerged.

She notices how Byleth’s eyes widen when she enters the parlour, and her wife’s gaze doesn’t falter until she’s sat down.

“It looks good on you,” says Byleth.

Edelgard stares bashfully down at her cup of bergamot tea. “It’s not too dramatic, is it?” she asks, running a finger across the ridge of her collarbone. Before, her hair tumbled down past her shoulders, but now it hovers just below her chin. It feels lighter, less burdensome.

“It _is_ dramatic,” says Byleth. “But that’s exactly why I like it.”

It’s stifling hot in the parlour. Summers in Enbarr are always warm, but something about the air in the palace feels oppressive. Light pools in through the tall windows, beyond which lie the gardens, although the lush green lawns are parched and yellow from the lack of rain.

“We should get out of the city,” says Edelgard, clinking her teacup against the saucer. “Even if it’s just for a few days. I’d like to go somewhere else for a change.”

Byleth raises an eyebrow. “Where did you have in mind?”

\----

The coastal air is crisp and fresh and tinged with the taste of salt. Although she’s still terrified of swimming, Edelgard dips her bare feet in the shallows, foam collecting around her ankles, and watches as Byleth casts her line out into the ocean. The beach is almost deserted, but it doesn’t matter, because she doubts anyone would recognise her anyway. She’s avoided looking at her reflection since the other day: not because she’s embarrassed, but because she’s afraid of the distant possibility that maybe this all isn’t real.

Eventually the setting sun disappears behind the clouds, bringing with it the chill of evening. She persuades a reluctant Byleth - who hasn’t caught a single fish, despite her best efforts - to return to the cottage on the cliffside with her, and they walk back up the trail hand in hand.

Once they’re inside, Byleth falls backwards onto the bed, exhausted from a day of travelling and swimming and fishing. Edelgard plans on joining her, but as she hangs up her cape in the hallway, she catches her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. She freezes, still unused to the sight of her own reflection, and for a split second she wonders if she’s encountered an intruder: some strange woman with violet eyes and chin-length hair. Hair that isn’t white, but brown, like the bark of a tree, the colour bursting from the roots like shoots bursting upwards through the earth.

She approaches the mirror and places a finger on the glass. She doesn’t know how the change has happened, or why. But she’s still _her_ , and she always has been - even as her hair has changed colour and the world has disintegrated and been built anew around her. 

With a smile, she closes her eyes, and in the darkness she can almost see her brothers and sisters smiling back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and kudos are appreciated!
> 
> I'm on twitter - @alpacagard - join me for shitposting and retweets of fanart.


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